1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a step-counting shoe, and more particularly to a step-counting shoe utilizing electromagnetic induction or piezoelectricity unit to produce electrical energy for recording the number of steps taken in walking.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In order to raise public environmental awareness, more and more green products are developed and manufactured. Wherein, there are some products utilizing simple mechanism to produce electrical energy, for example, a hand-pressing flashlight and a power-generation bicycle.
Nowadays, in order to maintain health and fitness, pedometer devices are used for motivating people to walk more. In addition, the conventional pedometer device should be worn on user's body to count steps and measure distance and calories consumed in walking, leading to inconvenience of use. Therefore, integrating pedometer device with shoes is one of the solutions to improve the problem mentioned above.
In general, the accompanied step-counting devices should be completely portable and very light weight, causing the batteries thereof to be as thin as possible. However, the thin batteries contain mercury (Hg), a toxic heavy metal that can result in environmental contamination. Moreover, if the accompanied step-counting devices are without waterproof, the batteries thereof would be easy to leak current, be affected with damp or damage. For a step-counting shoe, the battery thereof is configured within the shoe body, leading to the difficulty to replace the battery in the step-counting shoe.
Accordingly, how to develop a step-counting shoe which can produce electrical energy by simple mechanism without replacing the battery is the primary topic in this field.